June 19, 2009

a small amount of gushing and more posts that made me go hmmmm

My interest in playing WoW has increased exponentially since discovering, and attempting to barge into, the WoW blogsphere. I think it must be partially because when you’re playing WoW, if you don’t have an Awesome Guild of Awesome (and this is entirely my fault for not putting enough effort into finding one), it’s all too easy to feel like an alien from planet brain. I loved running Magister’s HELP I HAVE NO ACROYNM Terrace (MHIHNAT?) with the L-Plate Pally and her Mage Mentor because, as well as being a stupid amount of fun anyway, but it created a mini-sense of community and shared enthusiasm for aspects of the game that might not necessarily tender up obviously quantifiable rewards.

I was burbling happily to a WoW friend about the whole MHIHNAT experience not long after it happened. He wanted to know why it’d taken us til 2 in the morning, and I replied, rather sheepishly, that it had been all the dying that had slowed us down. He did the virtual equivalent of Giving Me A Look, which I took (possibly unfairly) as implying a certain degree of “you’re that shit?” So I got slightly defensive and explained that there were only 3 of us, 2 of us had never been there before, my healing probably wasn’t quite what it should have been and the pally had been a learner. “Pffft,” he said, “noobs.”

This saddened me

(Of course, I expressed the deep inner well of my sadness by snapping that I’d rather instance with somebody fun and charming and willing to learn that an arrogant wanktard (i.e. you) … but mainly I was saddened)

By contrast, the wonderful thing about the blogsphere is that it’s full of intelligent, articulate, interesting and entertaining people playing the game their own way – whether they’re raiding regularly, collecting achievements, untangling guild politics, sharing what they’ve learned, attempting to navigate the twilight zone of WoW gender dynamics, or just slouching towards 80 with a big axe – and supporting others in doing the same. It serves as an increasingly necessary antidote to every failPUG and every discussion that ends in “lol noob” or “lol faggot” or “I hope u get cancer and die.” Although finding yourself playing World of Moroncraft can be entertaining in a “woah, I am so much better than you in every conceivable way and I can spell” kind of way, it mostly winds up being depressing and demoralising as, poor Temi canattest.

There have been quite a few discussions of the ever painful hardcore v. casual issue – the most measured and thoughtful, and possibly definitive (in my humble opinion) being here, over at Falling Leaves and Wings.

I also went through a respeccing craze early in the week. I don’t know what happened but it went from “one quick respec to prioritise meditation” to Expensive Dither Extreme. I have no idea what came over me but I was like a woman at the hairdressers. Over the course of 2 days, I went through about ten subtly, minutely different variations of holy.

Take One was basically “same as before but with extra zen”

Take Two was “oh wait, Northrend healing is aoe heavy, I’m going to create a build that really prioritises my group healing.”

Take Three was “crap, now it takes me five hours to cast greater heal”

Take Four was “hmm, now I’m moderately bad at everything”

And so on and so forth.

Holy God. Seriously. That respeccing. Nobody told me it’s like crack. You think you can do it once or twice with your mates and then stop, but you can’t. The worst of it is you have spend more and more money to get the same hit than you did the first time. It’s a slippery slope, I say, a slippery slope. So when you’re talking to your trainer and he’s all “pssst, want to respec, only a gold” just say no, kids.

Of course, the truly ironic cherry on the compost heap was the very next day – the very next day I tell you – while I was sitting here at my computer, trembling and shaking and wondering how I was going to get through the day without a respec, World of Matticus published a typically fantastic and insightful guide on how to build a holy priest. Gah! That’s it.

/footstomp

/flounce

I’m going shadow.

And, finally, here is a picture of an undead warrior with an enormous axe because … well … why not. I like pictures of people doing their thang in Azeroth. And I find undead warriors particularly amusing, I think because they’re very literally a skinny little guy. Who could have your eye out with that.

Like this:

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It really used to bother me what people thought (and to some extent it still does); but at some point during TBC I forced myself to not give a shit what other people thought and it made the enjoyment I was getting from the game increase exponetially.

Who cares if it took you umpteen hours to finish a zone? Did you have fun? That is the only question you need to answer =)

Hehe – I’ve taken to calling it MHIHNAT because when I was trying to find what the appropriate acronym was there was *such debate* and *such angst* that it amused me greatly. You don’t think MHIHNAT will catch on, huh?

I actually don’t invest too much in the judgements of others regarding the way I choose to play the game. Altogether this was meant to be a positive comment not a negative one, in that although not giving a shit is a perfectly sustainable mindset, it’s *so much more fun* when other people share your enthusiasm and their own.

“attempting to navigate the twilight zone of WoW gender dynamics” – lol this line stuck out for me like a bit of a sore thumb, and im now wondering if you have any funny stories involving a case of mistaken identity/gender/sexuality. So do spill, if there is anything!

bwahahaha! *stuffs face with popcorn*

=^_^=

Obviously don’t listen to people who call you a noob, fun>skill and noobs>elitist, basement-dwelling bastards. The only thing i don’t like is people who refuse to learn from their mistakes, and just do the same wrong thing over and over again… I mean it’s all very well being less experienced at the game, we were all there at some point, but if you dont even have a modicum of willingness to learn or adapting to accomplish a goal then that can piss me off a little. And that’s probably a fairly elitist view but oh well, its what i feel, hehe.

And I would say that twice does count as on-going! Isn’t that what they say about pornography? once is an accident, but any more than that…

Which brings me nicely to the next point, that thing about respeccing being like a crack addiction was hilarious! hilarious!! that made me laugh more than a kinky burlesque priestess tying me to a table and then chain smiting me for hours on end (which, judging from some of Blizzard’s northrend head gear, isn’t too far off from what they expect us to be doing…)

And I’m a little sorry for tempting you into that first respec, peer pressure ftl. Although, I find it interesting that you mention it being ‘like a woman at the hairdresser’s’ since thats the addiction i currently suffer from!! You don’t have to worry though, after a raid when I was foolishly compelled by the urge to hearth to dalaran to between bosses to get a new look, the guild decided to organise this fun little INTERVENTION. Oh well, I guess i can finally say that I am well and truly on the path to recovery!! I’ll have those twelve steps down in no time! And by that time I can be proud of my unkempt, unbrushed, frizzy, messy, dishevelled, frizzy, unkempt, greasy, AAH I CAN’T TAKE IT ANY MORE!!!

*rushes off to the Dalaran hairdresser’s*

…

…

*walks back into view with a solemn look on face*

I’m going to have to apologise for my behavour, I’m very sorry that you had to see that little… outburst. Really.

*flicks a perfectly coifed strand of hair behind ear*

Moving On.

That priest spec guide was good, but you have to remember it was for raiding not levelling… and as such, the focus on talents will be slightly different. I would say that if you do decide to respec, definitely pick up Healing Focus on the first tier of the holy tree or the next time That Guy gets a little fidgety after pulling a big group of mobs and decides to bubble, you won’t be able to get a single heal off before they smush you.

And I really did think about this for a while… but i still can’t make up my mind. ach. That last link to the undead warrior with the axe was funny, but I really just can’t work out whether:

“And I find undead warriors particularly amusing, I think because they’re very literally a skinny little guy. Who could have your eye out with that.”

is meant as an innuendo or not! grrr, it’s right on the edge of being perfectly innocent so I can’t say for certain that it is an innuendo, but then again I can literally TASTE the connotations about skinny guys with big weapons! Oh i don’t know.

Actually I’ve been reading a lot of blog posts about women having trouble with stereotypes and male players, which I think is where that line came from. I’m afraid I have no interesting anecdotes to share so your popcorn might be premature. I tend not to talk about myself very much in WoW but if anything hilarious happens to me, you’ll be the first to know😉 How about you? *readies own popcorn*

I don’t think it’s elitist to expect people to learn. Puppies can learn, WoW players should be able to as well.

“a kinky burlesque priestess tying me to a table and then chain smiting me for hours on end..”

I always wondered what people got up to on raids. Now I know.

I think I’m safe from hairdressing addiction. Tam has a very severe look to him, so I think he’d scorn that kind of vanity, being a priest and everything. And the prettiest elf (my part-time bank alt) is, of course, perfection personified so requires no further beautification services.

I always find the barber shop in the UC hilarious – first of it looks like Sweeney Todd’s place and secondly I imagine a constant stream of Forsaken shambling in there to get their lower jaws wired back on.

Stop tempting me into more respecs, you shameless monkey. Actually I think I’m fairly happy for now and I will, of course, respec again for endgame – assuming I ever get there😛. Since I usually trek around with M’Pocket Tank, I’m probably not going to take healing focus. It’s a nice buffer against a lousy tank but I trust mine to keep me alive and, if not, at least I get to blame her😉 If I was levelling by myself, I probably couldn’t live without it. Literally.

Innuendos about the undead? What do you take me for. Pure as the driven snow, over here.

…every time somebody critted they shriek the numbers out excitedly and everyone else would cream over their keyboards….

…biggest most exuberant WoW-cock…

…he gushed on, happily, building to a big climax…

…the bukkake-like culmination of the verbal wanking…

…like a stereotypical discobunny gayboy who’d be shirtless and sweating on the dance floor to YMCA before you could say penis…

…fingers out of my pie, darlings!!”

I’ll let you work out that last one.

*plays a game of peggle*

…

…

Right. Moving On.

There may have been cases of mistaken gender. These cases may have been deliberately exaserbated by neither denying or correcting the misinformed. My keyboard may have also been splattered by copious amounts of beverage when the confused tank whispered “It turns me on when you heal me.” And then tere may have been a whispered ‘I’m a guy, douche!’ followed by a subsequent /ignore after said tank offered, no wait, INSISTED, that i see his ‘real weapon’ on webcam. Needless to say i never heard a peep outta that tank again =^_^= Besides, my weapon was far bigger than his anyway… idiot should have known that there’s no competing with a staff.

Hmm well actually i left out the few hours of smalltalk we had as I pottered around the fact that i had a new gender to mess about with, but yeah you get the gist of it😛

Lol i dont think im ever going to be able to take the UC barber shop seriously now you’ve said that! haha and yeah it is a little sweeney todd-esque… but not as much as that bug they had in the Wrath beta where every time you went into the dalaran barber shop you would fall through the floor and end up dead on a pile of skulls😀

oh and by all means avoid the talent if you have a capable tank, there are FAR better places you can spend those bitches!!

And you’ll get to endgame. Ready for all the kinky burlesque action your innocent little tam can handle😀

That really bugs me that your friend had that reaction about your terrace run. Its not difficult to take a half a second and try to relate to what someone is telling you. Like I said before, I ran that instance into the ground a million times but I can still think back to the first time I ran it and connect with what you’re saying and enjoy the moment with you. Blah.

Thanks for kind words and understanding – I feel the same way when other people tell me about their adventures. It doesn’t matter that you’ve done quest x or run instance y a million times plus three, WoW is always more enjoyable when shared, or so it seems to me.

I’m still feeling a little bitter towards the friend I mentioned so my first attempted response to your comment was “yes, that’s because you’re not a dick.”🙂

Tamarind is a holy priest (in World of Warcraft; in real life he is something different) which means - according to some of the folks he has PUGed with - he stands at the back in a sissy robe and does nothing.